In the first reading today, we hear about a figure by the name of Melchizedek. Melchizedek is an interesting character because his name is mentioned only twice in the entire Old Testament. He comes up in the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis. He seems to come out of nowhere and then we never hear of him again. He comes up also in the psalms. Psalm 110, which is what we prayed together in the Responsorial Psalm today, is the only other place in the entire Old Testament that we hear about Melchizedek. Melchizedek is an interesting figure, he is called the priest of God Most High. It is to him that Abram comes after he defeated the five kings who had teamed up against him.

He gave to Melchizedek one-tenth of all the booty he had received when he defeated these five kings.

Saint Paul talks about Melchizedek in his letter to the Hebrews. There, he reminds us that the greater always blesses the lesser. Even though Abraham is considered to be the patriarch, the father of all, he is blessed by Melchizedek; stating, in other words, that Melchizedek is greater even than Abraham, whom they looked to as their father. This helps us to understand the nature of this figure, this man. There are many who believe that Melchizedek may, in fact, be Shem. Shem was the first-born son of Noah. If you read the Book of Genesis carefully, Shem is the only righteous first-born. When we think about the first-born son, he is the one that everything is supposed to go to, he is the one that everything revolves around in the Old Testament.

In the first reading today, we hear about a figure by the name of Melchizedek. Melchizedek is an interesting character because his name is mentioned only twice in the entire Old Testament. He comes up in the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis. He seems to come out of nowhere and then we never hear of him again. He comes up also in the psalms. Psalm 110, which is what we prayed together in the Responsorial Psalm today, is the only other place in the entire Old Testament that we hear about Melchizedek. Melchizedek is an interesting figure, he is called the priest of God Most High. It is to him that Abram comes after he defeated the five kings who had teamed up against him.

He gave to Melchizedek one-tenth of all the booty he had received when he defeated these five kings.

Saint Paul talks about Melchizedek in his letter to the Hebrews. There, he reminds us that the greater always blesses the lesser. Even though Abraham is considered to be the patriarch, the father of all, he is blessed by Melchizedek; stating, in other words, that Melchizedek is greater even than Abraham, whom they looked to as their father. This helps us to understand the nature of this figure, this man. There are many who believe that Melchizedek may, in fact, be Shem. Shem was the first-born son of Noah. If you read the Book of Genesis carefully, Shem is the only righteous first-born. When we think about the first-born son, he is the one that everything is supposed to go to, he is the one that everything revolves around in the Old Testament. It makes it more interesting that every single first-born son (except one in the Book of Genesis) winds up being a failure, a terrible failure, in fact, except for Shem. If you look at the number of years that Shem lived, he still would have been alive at the time of Abraham. He would have been about 500 years old, but he lived until he was about 600 or so. He still would have been around and would have been Abraham's great-great-great-great-grandfather. So, it would have been right along the same line and in that time they were considered to be priests. It would make sense that Abraham would know who he was, that he would turn to him as a patriarchal figure and look to him to offer sacrifice.

Now, the sacrifice that Melchizedek offers is the part that is so important because it is entirely different from the other Old Testament sacrifices. Melchizedek offered bread and wine to God. Saint Paul, when he is talking about Melchizedek and Jesus in his letter to the Hebrews, talks about the fact that there is a new priesthood. "If there is a new priesthood," he says, "that requires that there be a new covenant." If the old covenant has passed away, then the old priesthood with the old sacrifices has passed away. If we have a new priesthood, it implies that we have a new covenant. If we have a new covenant, we have a new sacrifice.

That is precisely what we are celebrating today on the Feast of Corpus Christi. We are celebrating the covenant, we are celebrating the sacrifice, and we are celebrating this new priesthood. It is not a priesthood of Aaron. It is not the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament. Rather, it is an entirely different priesthood.

Remember, in the Old Testament, it started out that all of the Israelites were priests. But in their disobedience in the desert, when they bowed down to worship the golden calf, only the sons of the tribe of Levi stood up for God. So God stripped the priesthood from the other eleven tribes and said, "Only in Levi will there be priests." That was maintained until the time of Jesus and it was a priesthood by physical descent; you had to be a member of that tribe. But Jesus, of course, was a member of the tribe of Judah. If you go back to Genesis 49, there you will see that when Israel is blessing his twelve sons, he does not give the blessing to his first-born; or his second, or his third. The blessing goes to his fourth-born child: Judah. To Judah is given a blessing that kings will rise from him and the scepter will never depart. So they were looking for the Messiah to come up from the tribe of Judah. They knew from Psalm 110, which is considered a Messianic psalm, that the Messiah was also going to be a priest. But not a priest according to the order of Aaron. He would not be a Levitical priest because he is from a different tribe. He was a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, which means that when Jesus offered sacrifice, he would have to offer a sacrifice that was the same sacrifice as Melchizedek. So He offered bread and wine. He didn't simply offer it as bread and wine, but rather he took bread and wine and offered the perfect sacrifice at the Passover. He combined the two orders of priesthood, in a sense, because at the Passover they offered a lamb without blemish - Jesus is the Passover Lamb without blemish; then He takes bread and wine and changes it into His own Body and Blood, and it is that sacrifice that is offered to the Father.

That is the same sacrifice that we continue to offer to our heavenly Father today. It is not another sacrifice. It is not a new sacrifice. It is the exact same sacrifice because it is sacramental; it is not physical. In other words, we are not crucifying Jesus again and again, rather He is being offered still. It is the same sacrifice that continues to be perpetuated throughout history and because it is not a physical sacrifice, but a sacramental and mystical sacrifice, it can be extended in that manner. When we receive Jesus in just a few moments, we are receiving Him just as His disciples did and just as Our Lady did when she received Holy Communion at the hands of Saint John. We receive Jesus Crucified, but we receive Him also as He is right now. In other words, we receive Jesus resurrected, ascended, and glorified.

When you receive Holy Communion today, realize the reality of what is happening in your soul. Jesus Christ, who is enthroned in Heaven, is entering into your soul in the fullness of His glory to make your heart His throne. Our soul, in essence, becomes Heaven for Him. Think of the dignity that is ours: God Himself, in all of His splendor and glory, comes in such a humble way and changes us. Just as He takes that humble bread and wine and changes it into Himself, He takes us, mere human creatures, and He makes us into His dwelling place. He makes our heart the throne upon which He is seated. He makes our soul the temple and He allows each one of us to bow down and worship Him and glorify Him, even in this life.

When we stop to think about what it is we are receiving and what it is we do at Mass, we realize it is a preparation for eternity because it is a foreshadow, a foretaste of what we will have forever. In just a few moments, right before Holy Communion, I will turn to you and hold up the Lord and say, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world." Those are the words of Saint John the Baptist, from the second chapter of Saint John's Gospel, when he points Jesus out to his disciples as He was walking by. That last little phrase is so important: Blessed are they who are called to the banquet of the Lamb. That comes from the Book of Revelation. It is talking about the marriage banquet, the feast of the Lamb, the banquet of the Lamb and the bride. Think of what Jesus is doing. That is what we are called to for eternity: the eternal marriage banquet. It will take place in your soul in just a few moments. And this is merely a foreshadowing. We cannot even begin to grasp the reality that takes place in our hearts and souls today when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion. It is a mere fraction of what God has prepared for us for eternity.

But for now, what is important is that we recognize the truth of what it is and Who it is that we receive. This is not a symbol of Jesus. It is not a mere reminder for us or just an empty ritual we are going through so we can think about what awaits us in the future. It is a reality. It is Jesus Christ truly present: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The fullness of His person is present in the Blessed Sacrament. That is Who we receive in Holy Communion. That is why we kneel during the Eucharistic Prayer. That is the beauty of what we have here at Saint Agnes: to be able to kneel at the communion rail to receive Holy Communion. We do not stick our hand out to receive Jesus, but rather, He comes to us. You see the reverence we have when we receive Our Lord because it is not a symbol. That is not a piece of bread that you receive, it is Almighty God. That is why we must be in the state of grace. That is why we must have the proper disposition; we must have faith in the true presence of Jesus when we come forward to receive Him because it is not a mere symbol, it is not a sign, it is a reality. The truth is that it is Jesus, Almighty God, God made man, truly present under the form of bread so that we can receive Him. We can just ponder that, for the rest of our lives here on earth: It is merely a foreshadowing of Heaven.

For this reason, all I can do right now is plead with each one of you not only to take this one hour a week that we spend with Jesus at Mass on Sunday, but take time every single day to spend with Jesus. He is present in the Blessed Sacrament 24 hours a day in the tabernacles throughout the world. Here in Saint Paul and Minneapolis (if you want to think about miracles happening), we have more perpetual adoration than any place in the entire world taking place right here in the Twin Cities. Over 30 parishes now have perpetual adoration. There is no place that is so far from any one of us that it is a true inconvenience to get there. Any of us can go there, 24 hours a day the Lord is exposed in the monstrance. You can go anytime of the day or night and spend time with Jesus. Stop there on your way to or from work. Moms can bring their children during the daytime and go and adore the Lord for a little while, or go in the evening when one of the spouses can stay home with the children and the other can go and spend an hour with the Lord. Pray, be there with the Lord. That is what we are called to. If we really, truly believe that this is Jesus Christ, He would not sit here alone all week long. If we knew Jesus was coming down to earth right now, we would all go out to meet Him; but He is right there in the tabernacle, and we pay no attention.

So I plead with you, on behalf of the Lord: Come to Him. Not just once a week, but every day of the week. Come to Him in prayer, open your heart to Him, pour out your troubles to Him, and come to know Him. He said, "I know My sheep, and My sheep know Me. They hear My voice and they follow Me." How will we know Him and how will we know His voice unless we come to know Him in prayer, place ourselves before Him, and be united with Him? He is always there for us and He wants us now to be there with Him and for Him, and to recognize the truth of His presence. He is always there out of love for each one of us. He wants for us to make our hearts His throne and to worship Him like the angels and saints in Heaven.

Note: Father Altier does not write his homilies in advance, but relies solely upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Sunday June 2, 2002

Feast of Corpus Christi

Reading I (Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a)

Reading II (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

Gospel (St. John 6:51-58)

As we celebrate today this feast of Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ, we have come to the point that more than anything separates us from other Christians. If we think of all the points we have in common (which a lot of people will like to talk about), we all believe in the Trinity, we all believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, we all believe that He died and rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. There are many things we hold in common, but the point of departure with almost all other Christians is the Eucharist. The Orthodox believe in the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, and from there it begins to dwindle quickly.

It is the Eucharist, more than anything, which sets us apart, which is most critical to our lives as Catholic people, because our belief in the Eucharist is that Jesus Christ is truly present there - Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He is the Second Person of the Trinity so if we are going to profess our faith in the Trinity, it is the recognition that Our Lord promised He would remain with us all days until the end of the world, that He would not leave us orphans.

And so the question is how was He going to do that? Certainly, He is present in a number of different ways. He is present by His immensity as He is in all things, holding them in existence. He is present in His indwelling presence in all of those who are in the state of grace and that the Holy Trinity dwells within. One could suggest that maybe that is what He meant by the fact that He would not leave us orphans. But, in fact, He made it very clear in Saint Johns Gospel, as we heard in the Gospel reading today, that He meant something far more specific than that: He was going to remain in the fullness of His person so that we would be able to be with Him and He would be with us. He told us that it was better if He left than if He remained because He said that the Spirit of Truth would not be able to come. It is the Holy Spirit Himself who we call down upon the bread and wine to change them into Our Lords very Body and Blood so that Jesus Christ will be able to enter inside of us and not merely be there on the outside.

We need to think about what this really means for us. When we receive Holy Communion, we must keep in mind that it is not a symbol of Our Lord; it is not a piece of bread which suggests something to us; it is not a re-enactment of the Last Supper when we can think about how Jesus took bread and wine and gave them to His disciples; rather, what happens on the altar at Mass every day is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Just as Our Lady - along with Saint John, Saint Mary Magdalene, and that handful of faithful women - was there at Calvary, each one of us, every time we come to Mass, is at Calvary. Where the difference lies is that small group of faithful souls who was at the Cross was able to be there to witness the work of redemption, but on that day they were not able to receive the fruit of redemption, the fruit of the tree of life, which is the Cross; but we have that opportunity. Today and every day when we receive Jesus Christ, not only is He sacrificed for us on the altar, but we receive the fruit of that sacrifice: the very person of Jesus Christ.

When Our Lord told us that His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink, we must understand what He means by this. The Jewish people did not make that clear separation and distinction that the Greeks made and that we have made between body and soul. When He would talk about flesh, He meant His person. When He talked about His blood, the Jewish people understood that the life of the person was in the blood, and so to receive someones blood is to receive their life. When we talk about the Eucharist and receiving Jesus and that this is His flesh, we are not talking about the fact that we are receiving a little piece of His flesh, as if we were cutting off a chunk from His arm or even a piece of His Sacred Heart or any other part of His body - not at all. When you receive Holy Communion this morning, you will receive the entire person of Jesus Christ. Each one of us will receive the entire person of Our Lord, not a little part of Our Lord, but the fullness of His being.

Now if we think about that for just a moment, we need to look at the love of Jesus in the Eucharist. First, [we see] the humility of Our Lord. Saint Paul tells us, in his Letter to the Philippians, that "Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, but rather He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men". But that was not enough for Him. As if to be able to demonstrate the absolute depth of His humility, it is not enough for Him to come down to earth in the form of a man, but He went beyond that and He gives Himself to us in the form of a piece of bread. If any one of us was offered the opportunity to be able to somehow give ourselves to someone or even just be present as a piece of bread, who of us would even think of such a thing? We would immediately protest that such a thing would be beneath our dignity. Yet here is Almighty God, the Creator and Redeemer of the world, in the form of a piece of bread - the omnipotent One present to us in utter humility and in passive form.

But there is a reason why he did this: It is because He loves you individually. He loves you so much that He wants to give Himself to you as a gift. Again, just stop and think for a moment. If Our Lord were to ask you the same thing that He asked Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah, "Ask for a sign. Ask for anything you want. Make it as high as the sky or as deep as the netherworld," who of us would ever say, "Lord, I want You to be present to me in such a way that I will be able to receive the fullness of your person into myself." We might say, like Moses, "Let me see Your face." We might say, like Philip did to Jesus, "Show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Even that, most of us would quake in our boots to even think of such a thing! But we might have enough arrogance (which really is what it would have to be for most of us) to ask such a thing. But who of us would ever ask God to give Himself to us in the form of a piece of bread so that we could consume our God?

But that is precisely what He has done for us. He has given Himself to us, first of all, through the words of the prophet Isaiah, in a way that we would never imagine, and that is to become a little baby. And now he has done something which is even more unimaginable; that is, to humiliate Himself to the point of being present in the form of a piece of bread. But at the moment of consecration, everything which makes that a piece of bread is completely changed; there is nothing left of bread except for the form. It is now the person of Jesus Christ: His Body, His Blood, His Soul, and His Divinity - the fullness of His being  present in each and every host so that each one of us, when we receive Holy Communion, receives the fullness of the person of Jesus Christ.

We need, then, to ask ourselves, "How do we receive? What is the disposition of our hearts?" To think that we would consume our God! But we must allow ourselves at the exact same moment to be consumed by our God: that as we receive Him, we allow Him to receive us; that as He gives Himself to us, we in turn give ourselves to Him so that there is this beautiful exchange that happens: As Our Lord gives His heart to us, we give our heart to Him. As He enters into our heart, we enter into His. As He gives His entire person to us, we need to give our entire person to Him. This is the most intimate act that can ever happen. There is nothing more intimate that can possibly take place in this world. Yet it is merely a foreshadowing, a foretaste, of what we are called to for all eternity, where Our Lord has told us that He is going to prepare a banquet. Each one of us is called to the banquet of the Lamb where Jesus Himself will be the food upon which we feed. The bread of angels, which becomes the bread of man, is merely the foreshadowing of what He has for us for eternity.

If this is the foreshadowing - that we receive God, that we literally become the temple, the sanctuary, the holy place, where the Lamb of God makes His dwelling, where our heart becomes the throne for the King of kings, where the King of Heaven must become the King of our hearts - just think for a moment what that means for you. Your soul, for that time when Jesus is present, becomes Heaven. Think of the humility of Jesus Christ, that He is going to come into the soul of this sinner and He is going to make that place Heaven and He is going to make this heart His throne where He is going to worshiped by the holy angels! What kind of worship and adoration and thanksgiving must be ours? We need to consider that because there is a real problem in Catholicism these days. I do not know that people would actually suggest this, but it is the way it would appear on the outside: As Catholics, we go to Mass on Sunday - and because we showed up we get a piece of bread; that is the "reward" for having come to Mass. That is not true at all. This is God, and He is present our souls sacramentally. Truly present, the saints tell us, for 15 - 20 minutes. So I have to ask the question: Why the beeline for the door? Why the rush for the parking lot when Jesus is present within our souls? Why do we not want to remain with Him as He is so willing to remain with us? Why the absolute rush to get out to the car when we could stay here in church and commune with Jesus Christ? If the goal that you have (without good reason) is to be the first one out of the parking lot so you can beat the rush, I have a suggestion: Be the last one to the parking lot and there wont be any rush then either. Remain with Our Lord.

Saint Francis de Sales, when people would leave after Communion, used to send two altar boys with candles to walk on either side of the person as they walked to their home because Jesus was within them and they were like a tabernacle. The Lord was right there; so in order to show the reverence that the person refused to show, Saint Francis would send the altar boys to escort the person home. There is a priest in our own day who was so frustrated with the fact that people were leaving Mass early. He had tried over and over to tell the people to quit leaving Mass early and to stay and make a thanksgiving and be with Our Lord. Finally, out of frustration, he made a huge sign and put it right above the back door. It said simply: Remember, Judas was the first one to leave Mass early.

We need to ponder that as we try to race out the door with Jesus within us. For what? So we can go out into traffic and commit some sins? Imagine, with Jesus present right in your heart, the filth that might come out of your mouth, the gestures you might make, the anger and the frustration that you experience when you get out into traffic. To sin with Jesus right there, what a sacrilege! How much better to stay here and to pray and to adore and to give thanks to the Lord for the gift which He has given to you. In return, give yourself to Him as a gift. Then, filled with that prayer and the peace that comes with it, you can go to the car and you can make a peaceful drive home without sin and be able to take that prayer and that love and that adoration out into the world. That is the way Our Lord would want us.

The early Christians were willing to die for the mystery of the Eucharist. They understood. Saint Paul made it very clear in his Letter to the Corinthians; we heard a little part of it today. Go home and read 1 Corinthians, chapters 10-11, and realize that these were written before the year 60 AD. Saint Paul lays the belief in the Eucharist out very clearly. Read John, chapter 6, and see the clear teaching that was understood from the very beginning of Christianity. Ask yourself, "Would I be willing to die for the Eucharist? Is my faith in the Real Presence such that I would be willing to give my life?" If your answer to that is "no" then I beg you to read those Scripture passages, go to an adoration chapel, get down on your knees, and ask Our Lord to demonstrate to you that He is truly present. He will. You will walk out a changed person if your heart is really open to allow Our Lord to work. And if your answer to that question of whether you would die for the Eucharist is "yes" then let me challenge you to go a step further on the practical level: Make sure when you receive Our Lord that you spend the time giving Him the proper adoration, the proper gratitude, the proper worship; spend the time with Him, communing with Him in your heart. That is why He gives Himself to you this way: so that you can actually receive God into your heart. You can love Him there and be loved by Him there.

If you would say that you would die for Him, then at least, every day, love Him, adore Him, worship Him, be with Him. Spend that time with Our Lord after receiving Him in Holy Communion. Do not try to race out of the church as quickly as you can - God is right there with you. Be with Him and grow in love for Him so that if the day ever comes that He will ask that ultimate sacrifice, you will have grown so perfectly in love that there will be no choice, there will be no hesitation: You will give yourself for Him as He has given Himself to and for you.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

The High Priesthood of Jesus

June 22, 2003

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Reading I (Exodus 24:3-8)

Reading II (Hebrews 9:11-15)

Gospel (St. Matthew 14:12-16, 22-26)

Today, as we celebrate the great solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, one could ask why it is that in the readings, all three of them, we hear about a covenant. Why not a greater focus on the Blessed Sacrament? But instead, the Church has given to us the focus on a covenant. The first reading tells us about how the old covenant was made, that Moses had to take the blood of the bulls and goats, sprinkle some of it upon the altar, and then he had to sprinkle some of it on the people. It was only by having that blood sprinkled upon them that the people became partakers in that covenant. Saint Paul, in his Letter to the Hebrews that we heard in the second reading, tells us that if the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of a heifers ashes could make a persons body pure so that the individual would be able to enter into the worship of the Jewish people, then how much more will the blood of Christ do. It is not about the cleansing of our body, but cleansing of our conscience, he tells us; it is the cleansing of the soul.

But it is much, much more than just simply that. Saint Paul talks about the fact that there is a new covenant, that there is a new priesthood, and, therefore, that there is a new sacrifice. We recall that his Letter to the Hebrews was written to Jewish priests who were now Catholic priests. And one of the questions that a Jewish priest would naturally have is, Where is the high priest? We have always had a high priest so that he could enter once a year into the Holy of Holies on the feast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and he could offer sacrifice so that the peoples sins could be forgiven. Remember that the high priest had to offer a bull for himself because the original high priest, Aaron, had made a golden calf, a bull, out in the desert so that he and the people could bow down and worship. Because of that, Aaron had to offer a bull for himself. So every year the high priest had to offer a bull for himself and then he had to offer the goat or the sheep for the people. As these new Catholic priests would be looking at what they were doing, they would have naturally asked themselves, Where is the high priest? Where is the offering of the bull and where is the offering of the goat or the sheep?

So Saint Paul is explaining it to them. The nature of a covenant has not changed. Therefore, just as in the old covenant the only way a person could become a partaker in the covenant was by having the blood of the sacrificed animal sprinkled upon him, in this case, that which is sacrificed is the Lamb of God  it is Jesus Himself. And the only way that we can be partakers of that covenant is to have the blood of Christ sprinkled upon us. For each one of us, that took place on the day we were baptized. Each covenant also has a sign, and so each time the people would see the sign they would be reminded of the covenant. We too have a sign for our covenant, but this covenant is different from any of the others. All of the other covenants being more objective and separate from the people, they would have a sign that was external. For instance, the sign for the covenant with Noah was the rainbow. Every time the people saw the rainbow, they would remember that God would never again destroy the earth by a flood. The sign of the covenant with Moses was the circumcision, so constantly the people were reminded that this was a covenant in the flesh and a covenant for the purification of the flesh to make them children of God. But because what is sacrificed in this new covenant is Jesus Himself, and because Jesus is the covenant, the very sign of the covenant is Jesus. It is the Blessed Sacrament which we receive week after week and day after day so that we are reminded not only externally of our participation in this new covenant, but rather we enter every single time more deeply into the very essence of this covenant, into the very Person of Jesus Christ.

Now again, if we line these two covenants up, as Saint Paul does in his Letter to the Hebrews so that these former Jewish priests would be able to understand the dignity of their new office, he tells us that in the old covenant there is a high priest who is different each year. Once a year he enters into the Holy of Holies and he offers that bull for himself and the sheep for the people. But Jesus, he tells us, is our High Priest and He has entered the Holy of Holies, not the one that was a model made by Moses (Remember, Moses, back in the book of Exodus, saw a vision of the worship of Heaven. He saw the temple in Heaven and he was told to make a temple in the likeness of what he had seen. And he had to worship according to the likeness of what he had seen), but Jesus has now entered into the temple in Heaven, in the New Jerusalem. He has not entered into the Holy of Holies made by human hands, not a copy of the original, but He has entered into the original itself, into the royal throne room of God. And because Jesus risen from the dead lives forever, He has a priesthood which will not pass away. Because He is without sin, He had no need to offer a bull for Himself as the high priest. But because we are with sin, we, the people of God and His children, needed to have the Lamb sacrificed for us. In the Old Testament, a lamb, obviously, could only be sacrificed once. If you kill the lamb and burn it, you are not going to be able to do that a second time; it is nothing but ashes. But because Our Lord lives forever, the Lamb once slain Who now is alive and will never die, standing before the royal throne of God, continues to offer that one sacrifice for our sins. We do not need a new lamb to be sacrificed because the one Lamb Who has been sacrificed continues to offer Himself in the Holy of Holies for the forgiveness of our sins.

That is why in the New Testament there is only one priest, Jesus Christ. It is why in the New Testament there is only one sacrifice, Jesus Christ. And it is why still there is only one priesthood and one sacrifice. I am not my own priest. Each priest in the Old Testament was his own priest and he had his own priesthood. In the New Testament, and today and until the end of the world, there is but now one priesthood and one Priest, which is why the priest stands in the very Person of Jesus Christ and why we continue to offer the one sacrifice foretold by the prophet Malachi that there would be one pure sacrifice offered to God from the rising of the sun until its setting. It is not a separate sacrifice, and it is not that we are sacrificing Jesus again. It is the one sacrifice being offered still for each one of us so that the sign of our covenant, and indeed our covenant itself, will continue to be offered to God so that our sins could be forgiven.

And so in the Gospel reading when we hear Our Lord telling us about His Body and Blood at the time of the Passover, and that this is the blood of the covenant, just as Moses had sprinkled the blood of the old covenant upon the people, now Our Lord sprinkles us with the blood of the new covenant  His own blood. And we share in His life. Remember, in the Old Testament times, the people believed that the life of the animal or the life of the person was contained in the blood. And so when they sprinkled the blood upon the altar and upon the people, it was sprinkling the people with the very life of the animal. In this case, we are covered with the Blood of Christ; we are covered in His life. We become partakers in his life because it is not merely an external covering so that the flesh is made clean, but rather it is something which is internal so that the whole person, body and soul, is made clean. And more than that, because we have become children of God, being lifted up to a divine level of acting and being, we not only receive the Body and the Blood and the Soul of Christ so that our body, blood, and soul will be purified, but we receive the very Divinity of Jesus Christ Himself in the Eucharist so that that which has been made divine within us will continue to be strengthened and we will be purified to act as true sons and daughters of God.

That is the new covenant. That is what we participate in. That is why this is given to us on this feast so clearly in the readings, the nature of a covenant, an agreement between God and His people, so that we would know who we are, so that we would constantly be reminded of the covenant which is ours. Recall, it is not a covenant with Jesus; rather, Jesus is the covenant. When we became partakers in the covenant, we became members of Jesus Himself. Therefore, each time we participate in the sign of the covenant, which is the Eucharist, we participate in the Lord Himself, in His life, in His nature. We enter more deeply into the heart of Jesus Christ, as He enters more deeply into our hearts each time we receive Him. As we participate in the Eucharist, we are to become what we receive. We are to be conformed  and, indeed, transformed  into Jesus Christ.

So for us, this covenant is not at an arms distance. It is not something which is merely objective and was done 2,000 years ago for us and now we can share in it. But rather it is something which is within us. It is something which is subjective. It is something which continues to be offered for us today so that we can enter into the very essence of the Person Who is the covenant, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, Jesus Christ Who takes away the sins of the world. And as we enter into Christ, we participate in the fullness of His Person  Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity  so that we will be able to give true and fitting worship to God. Not merely in this sanctuary made by human hands, but we with Christ will be able to share in His eternal priesthood, in His eternal sacrifice, and enter into the Holy of Holies, the original made by God, where we will be able to worship Him in the one true sacrifice which has been offered and continues to be offered before the royal throne of God. That is what we are called to. That is the term of the covenant which is ours, a covenant which promises eternal life and the eternal worship of God through the one sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the new covenant, the new blood sprinkled upon us, and the new sacrifice offered for us.

A new priesthood, Saint Paul reminds us, is required if there is a new covenant. And we have a new priesthood, not the priesthood of the order of Aaron, but the priesthood of the order of Melchizedek. It is a new priesthood because it is not a Levitical priesthood. Jesus was not a Levite. He was from the tribe of Judah, so He could not be a priest according to the Old Testament. But He is a priest according to what is promised in Psalm 110: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. And so the sacrifice that we offer is the sacrifice of Melchizedek, that is, bread and wine. But Jesus tells us in John 6: The bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world. And the wine that He offered, as He made clear in todays Gospel reading, is His Blood, and it is the blood of the new and eternal covenant which is offered for us so that we can have eternal life, that we can share in the new covenant, the new priesthood, the new sacrifice, and the new life, which is a divine life offered for each one of us so that we can worship God, not only here, but in the Holy of Holies in Heaven forever.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Priesthood, Sacrifice, and the Eucharist

June 13, 2004

The Feast of Corpus Christi

Reading I (Genesis 14:18-20)

Reading II (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

Gospel (St. Luke 9:11b-17)

Today as we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, we look at the context in which the Church gives us this feast. Two weeks ago, we celebrated the feast of the Holy Spirit, the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the apostles and filled them with the grace to be able to understand all the things that the Lord had taught, and to give them the courage and strength to go forth and not only to believe it but to preach it and to live it. Last week, we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Trinity where we professed our faith in one God Who is three Persons. Today, we celebrate in a particular way the Second Person of the Trinity Who became man for us. These three mysteries three weeks in a row regard the very being of God Himself. It is the very essence of who we are then as Catholics that we are celebrating in these days, to look first and foremost at what it is that unites us together with all other Christians. The belief in the three Persons of the Trinity, the belief that the Holy Spirit has been poured forth into our hearts so we will be able to live according to the ways of God, and today we celebrate what separates us from most of the other Christian people.

Other than the Orthodox, we believe that Jesus Christ is truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, under the forms of bread and wine. We share that same belief with the Orthodox Christians, but with none other. The Anglicans actually would make the same claim, but they have certain problems with their priesthood. Therefore, there is a real dubium with regard to the way it would be understood. And so the ones that we would have union with truly in this regard are only the Orthodox.

We have to ask ourselves just exactly what it is that we believe and why. How is this possible, that something which looks like a piece of bread and looks like a cup of wine can really and truly be the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ? When you stop to think about what that means, it literally means that the Eucharist is God. That is exactly what it is. Saint Justin Martyr, way back in the early centuries of the Church, was put to death not only because he refused to bow down to the gods of the Romans, but they taunted him and said, So, you eat your god? And he said, Yes. That is exactly what we do; we receive God into our own selves. Once again, how is this done? How is it possible that this could happen?

First of all, understand that it is only possible because God loves you. That is the only reason it is possible. As we have spoken over the last couple of weeks, once again, we look at the same truth. How is it possible that you could be one with someone else? How is it possible that you can give yourself completely to another person, to be totally united with that individual? Only in love is such a thing possible. When you love someone so completely and so perfectly that you want nothing more than to be one with that person, that is the driving force. Well, God is love, and therefore what God wants more than anything is for us to know how much we are loved. What a tragedy that we just continue to refuse to believe it. We believe in the teachings of the Church with regard to the Trinity, with regard to what Scripture tells us about God, that He is love itself, yet we somehow continue to refuse to believe that God really loves us. Imagine, once again, if you loved someone so much that you wanted to become one with that person and the other person just kept looking at you, saying, I dont believe it. I dont believe that you really love me. I cant accept that you love me that much. This cant be real. It cant happen. No, no, no, its not possible. That is what we keep doing to God!

Interestingly, at the same time that we keep telling God no, we keep coming to the communion rail and celebrating the union that we have with Him, while we keep going back to our pew and saying, No, no, this cant happen. Well, it did. It just happened  it is happening! Yet we refuse to accept the truth, not the objective truth  we know that Jesus is there; we know that He loves us; we know that He gives Himself to us  but the truth we refuse to accept is the one that is in our own selves; it is the subjective element of it. That is what we really need to work at, to open our hearts and to really believe the truth. God loves you. If you want to do it the other way around, just say, God loves me, and He loves me so much that He gives Himself to me because He wants to be united with me. We look at ourselves and say, But Im unlovable, so how can God love me? But that is the lie. That is Satan, pure and simple, speaking in your heart and telling you that you are not lovable, that you are not acceptable, that God does not love you. Therefore, even though He wants to give Himself to you, you cannot accept it because you are not lovable in the first place. What more would the devil want than for us to go through life believing his lies? What more does Jesus need to do to prove how much He loves us? It was not enough for Him to die because we would not even accept that. So He continues to give Himself to us and tragically we do not even accept that.

Now one of the things that people will ask is  How it is possible? Not, How is it possible that God would love me so much that He would want to do this? but, How is it possible that bread and wine would become the Body and Blood of Jesus? How is it possible that what happens every single day at the altar can really be real? We go back and look at the first reading today, and we hear about a mysterious figure by the name of Melchizedek. The name Melchizedek means the king of righteousness. He is the king of Salem, which would later be called Jerusalem. The word salem which is the same as the Hebrew salom means peace. So he is the king of righteousness; he is the king of peace. Melchizedek is called The Priest of God Most High. If you scour the Book of Genesis, you will find no one else in the early days of the world who had such a title. He served the Lord and he was the sole priest of the Most High God.

Abraham had defeated the five kings who had gathered against him, and, after the defeat of those kings, he came to Melchizedek and he offered one-tenth of everything that he had to Melchizedek (to God through Melchizedek, technically). Melchizedek offered sacrifice and he blessed Abraham. And the sacrifice that Melchizedek offered was bread and wine. It was not bulls and goats, the way that the Jewish people would later offer sacrifice to God, but it was bread and wine. Now the interesting thing about this figure of Melchizedek is that Genesis 14 is the only time we hear about him. Suddenly, there he is on the scene offering sacrifice to God on behalf of Abraham, and then we never hear of him again.

Many years later, King David, when writing the psalms, would bring Melchizedek up. Psalm 110, which we heard today, is a Messianic psalm looking forward to the coming of Christ and proclaiming that the Messiah is going to be a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. This is of critical importance because when you go back to the Book of Genesis again and you look at Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, he had twelve sons and when it came time to bless his twelve sons right as he was dying, Jacob gave the blessing not to his firstborn son, nor to his second or third, but to the fourth. The fourthborn son was named Judah, and from Judah was to come forth the Messiah. This is important because when the people at the time of the Exodus were disobedient, the Judaites did not stand up for God; only the Levites stood up for God. Therefore, the priesthood was taken away from all the other eleven tribes of Israel and given to Levi alone. To Aaron and his sons was given the gift of the priesthood, but to none of the other Jewish people. So according to the lines of the Jewish peoples, no one from the tribe of Judah could be a priest. But we have the promise and the blessing that the Messiah would rise from the tribe of Judah; we have the prophecy of David in Psalm 110 that the Messiah is going to be a priest, but a priest not according to the order of Aaron (because he cannot be), but a priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

If you look at Saint Pauls Letter to the Romans, in chapters 5, 6, and 7 primarily, he talks specifically about this, that there is a new covenant, and if there is a new covenant that there has to be a new sacrifice, and if there is a new sacrifice that requires a new priesthood, and if there is a new priesthood it cannot be a priesthood according to the order of Aaron, so therefore it has to be something entirely different. It is prophesied that the priesthood would be according to the order of Melchizedek, and therefore the sacrifice that would be offered would be the sacrifice which Melchizedek offered. It would have to be bread and wine. If you look at Saint Johns Gospel in Chapter 6, Jesus tells us explicitly: The bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world. Saint Paul reiterates the Last Supper in his Letter to the Corinthians (so we see that it is clearly the teaching of the early Church) and says: I pass on to you what was first handed on to me, that on the night He was betrayed, Jesus took bread and gave thanks. He broke the bread and said, Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is My body. In the same way, when supper was ended, He took the cup and after He had given thanks He said, Take this, all of you, and drink of it. This is the cup of My blood. And we see that in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke at the Last Supper.

We see very clearly, then, the sacrifice of Christ. We can ask, How is it possible that this is continuing on? Maybe it happened at the Last Supper  Jesus was there, He said the words  but what does that have to do with us? Just as in the Gospel reading today we see how Jesus started with five loaves and two fish, He fed five thousand people, and there was more left over than when they began, so too, for centuries now, Our Lord begins with an ordinary piece of bread and an ordinary chalice filled with wine and He Himself changes that into His own Body and Blood. He changes that through the priesthood, but the priesthood is the priesthood of Jesus Christ.

What is different about the priesthood of today as opposed to the priesthood of the Old Testament is not merely the matter that it is of a different line, but it is an entirely different kind. The priesthood according to the order of Aaron was a priesthood by descent. One was born into it and each priest was his own priest. That is no longer the case. I am not my own priest. Even the Holy Father does not have his own priesthood. There is only one priesthood in the New Testament, and that is the priesthood of Jesus Christ. There is only one priest and there is only one victim and there is only one sacrifice. In the Old Testament, there are many priests, there are many victims, and there are many sacrifices. That is not true in the New Testament. Each and every priest, on the day that he is ordained, goes through what the Church calls an ontological change  that means a change in his very being  and he becomes Jesus Christ. The priest stands in the very person of Jesus Christ, which is why at the altar you do not hear the priest say, This is the Body of Jesus, which was given up for you, but he says, This is My Body, which will be given up for you. This is the cup of My Blood  because it is Jesus Christ Himself Who is speaking those words.

If you ask, How can this be? it is exactly the same mystery as what happened 2,000 years ago. Jesus, Who is God from all eternity, took a human nature to Himself so that He could be able to offer His whole Person (because He had a human nature) in sacrifice. And because He had a human body with human vocal cords, He could speak the words of the consecration. His divinity was working through His humanity to be able to change the bread and wine into His own Body and Blood. Now His divinity works through the humanity of the priest so that the exact same mystery can continue. What started out as one loaf of bread at the Last Supper has been multiplied for countless billions of people, day after day, week after week, and year after year, for two thousand years so that the same mystery could continue to happen, not only the same objective mystery on the altar, but the same subjective mystery in your heart and in your soul so that you would be able to receive Jesus Christ, so that you receive the fullness of God Himself.

Remember, outside of the immanent Trinity, wherever one Person is, all three are there. The Eucharist is outside of the immanent Trinity; therefore all three Persons are present. You receive the fullness of God. You receive the full Person of Jesus. You do not receive a piece of Jesus; each particle of the Eucharist contains the fullness of God Himself, the full Person of Jesus Christ, His whole Person  Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He unites Himself with you. He gives His entire being to you as a gift because He loves you, and He will continue to offer this same sacrifice every single day until the end of the world in fulfillment of His promise.

There is nothing at all that is lacking on the part of Christ; therefore, what we need to look at is in our own selves and ask ourselves, What is lacking within me? Is my heart open to receive Him? Am I giving myself to Him in love as He gives Himself to me in love? Am I really wanting to be united with Him? Am I receiving Him with the proper disposition? Am I in the state of grace? Is my heart filled with love, with desire for union with Jesus Christ? Do I really want to be transformed as God takes ordinary elements of earth, bread and wine, and transforms them into God Himself, something completely supernatural? Am I willing to allow Him to take these ordinary elements of earth  that is, my own self  and transform them into Jesus Himself, into something divine? That is the disposition we have to have as we come forward to the communion rail, to have our hearts completely open so that there is a total exchange of persons. He gives Himself entirely to us and we receive His gift. We too should be giving ourselves entirely to Him so that He will be able to receive the fullness of our gift. In that, the two become one, and we are transformed so that we are no longer merely members of the Mystical Body of Christ, but we become transformed to become the very being, the very Person of Jesus Himself. That is the love of God for you as an individual.

Do we really believe that? Do we accept it? That is why the Church sets aside this day to celebrate in a special way the reality that we celebrate every day, so that we could really stop and take heed, to think clearly and deeply about this mystery; not merely the objective mystery that happens on the altar, but the subjective mystery that happens in our hearts and in our souls, so that the love of God, which is poured forth into us will be able to be received and returned, like united to like, two persons perfectly united in love.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Sunday May 29, 2005

Corpus Christi

Reading I (Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a)

Reading II (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

Gospel (St. John 6:51-58)

Today we celebrate one of the most important of all of the feasts in the Churchs year. It is the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ truly present among us in the Holy Eucharist. The importance of this feast is evident just from what it is, but it is far more important today than it ever has been because the belief of Catholics in the Real Presence of Jesus is at perhaps its lowest point ever in the Churchs history, at least among Catholics in America. We live in a scientific society, and we think that we have to be able to gauge everything in some sort of scientific way. If we cannot see it, hear it, taste it, touch it, if we cannot gauge it with some sort of computer accuracy then we are not going to believe that it is real.

When we look at what Moses told the people about what God had done thirty-five hundred years ago out in the desert, he tells them that God put them out there to test them, to test them by affliction. The only thing that is being afflicted with the Eucharist is our senses, and it is because they cannot grasp the reality of what is there. So God is not testing us now with affliction; He is testing us with faith. He is asking us to believe in something we cannot see or touch or taste or smell or hear. Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, but we cannot sense Him there. God is testing us to see if we are going to remain faithful, just like the people of old. Moses told them that God tested them with affliction in order to see that it was their intention to keep the commandments. Well, God is testing us now with faith to see if it is our intention to really, truly believe what it is that He has said.

There are lots of things we can talk about with the Eucharist. We can look at the second reading today from 1 Corinthians, where Saint Paul says, Is not the cup that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? We can look at what Our Lord says in the Gospel when He tells us, Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. He goes on to say that His flesh is real food and His blood is real drink, and that anyone who eats the bread that He will give  which is His flesh for the life of the world  will have life eternal. We could talk all about how it is not an accidental change (that means that after the consecration the Eucharist still looks like a piece of bread and tastes like a piece of bread, still looks like wine and tastes like wine, but the reality has changed). We all know the teaching of transubstantiation to describe what happens in the Eucharist, how the substance (which is the underlying substructure that makes a thing what it is) has changed, so that which makes bread what it is has changed into that which makes Jesus Christ Who He is. It is not an exterior change, thanks be to God; otherwise, we would be cannibals, if that were the case. It is, however, a real change that takes place.

In the Eucharist, the fullness of the Person of Jesus Christ is there. When you receive a host, you do not receive a piece of Jesus. The Real Presence means the Body, the Blood, the Soul, and the Divinity of Christ. The Body, the Blood, and the Soul are His humanity, just like ours. His divinity is exactly what it says: His Divine Nature, the fullness of His Divine Person. And because it is a substantial presence of Our Lord, if you break the host in half, you do not receive less of Jesus. If you were to receive a hundred hosts, you would not receive more of Jesus. In each host is the fullness of Christ. If you break the host, even though there is less of the physical matter, the substantial reality remains the same now in both halves. There is not less of Jesus that is there.

We can talk about all these things, and they are all true. You can look at that beautiful sequence that we all just read aloud, the Lauda Sion, and all of those points Saint Thomas Aquinas makes regarding the Eucharist. They are all true. You can read all about the Eucharist in the Catechism, and it is all true. Still, we can walk away and say, But I dont believe. The most brilliant theologian in the world who could explain the Eucharist better than everyone, if he does not have faith, what good is it? To know all of the teachings and not believe does not do a thing for us. God is testing us, not on the knowledge in our heads, but on the faith within our hearts. He is asking us now in this age where we think we have to be able to prove everything scientifically (which is totally foolish, anyway) to go beyond the senses, to go beyond any kind of objective test or proof that we can look at because we cannot.

Oh, sure, we can look at things and say, Well, there are a couple of occasions in history where in fact there have been external changes in the Eucharist, where the piece of bread actually has become a piece of human flesh, and we can talk all about the scientific elements of it. We can talk all about the many, many, many times that the host has begun to bleed and has sometimes saturated the altar cloth with human blood. You can ask yourself, When was the last time you bit into a sandwich and it began to bleed? Bread does not bleed. But that is not going to make us believe either.

All of the Eucharistic miracles are not the reason why we believe. We believe because Jesus Christ is God, and because He spoke the words. He is the One Who has told us that this is what we have to do. We believe because it is the gift of Jesus Christ, and that is something that must be in our hearts, not in our heads. The old saying is Fides quarens intellectus, which is Faith seeking understanding, not Understanding seeking faith. We do not understand first and then come to believe. The other old saying is For those with faith, no proof is necessary; and for those without faith, no proof will ever be sufficient. You can have all the intellectual knowledge about the Eucharist that you want and still not believe because your head is not going to tell you what is there  only your heart can.

So my challenge to you today, and for every single day when you receive Holy Communion, is to go back to your pew, kneel down, and close your eyes. Do not look at the people receiving Communion; they are not God. You have Jesus right inside of you; look at Him. You cannot look at Him with your eyes. The ears of the body cannot hear Him. Your fingers cannot touch Him. But the eyes of your soul can see Him. The ears of our soul can hear Him. Your heart can touch Him. We need to go beyond our senses and we need to be able to look with our soul. It is there in the depths of our being, where we can close everything else out and unite ourselves with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, that the real proof for the truth of Jesus truly present in the Eucharist is demonstrated. And the greatest miracle, the greatest proof of all, is the change that happens in our lives. Once again, all you have to do is look at all the bread you have eaten over the course of your life. I can guarantee you that there is not one single piece of bread that has made a change in your life. It cannot. But the Bread of Life is different. All we need to do is look at the countless saints throughout history. Look at friends and family members and our own selves, and see that we have been touched, we have been changed, because that is no longer a piece of bread  it is the reality of Jesus Christ.

If we want to look at the Churchs faith in the Eucharist, all we need to do is ponder the reality that if that piece of bread which is sitting upon the paten right now is not changed into Jesus Christ then each and every one of us is going to be condemned for eternity because we are guilty of idol worship. We kneel and pray to Jesus truly present in the Eucharist, and if we are kneeling and praying to a piece of bread then we have all violated the First Commandment and for two thousand years the Church has been in violation of the First Commandment, if that would be the case. And truly it is not, because the reality is that at the moment of consecration and from that point forward Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist.

If we have failed to recognize Him there, it is only because we are trying to understand with our minds or we are trying to grasp with our senses. In the Eucharist, neither one will be sufficient. We have to be able to understand and grasp Him with our hearts because it is in the heart that He gives Himself to us. It is heart speaking to heart, not mind to mind, or mouth to ear. It is heart to heart. If we recognize Jesus in our hearts, if we are willing to unite ourselves with Him in our hearts, then our lives will change. If we walk away from Mass week after week wondering how it is that our lives are not changed if this is God truly present in the Eucharist, do not blame the Eucharist. If my life has not changed, it is my fault, not the fault of Jesus. He is there in the Eucharist in a passive manner. Therefore, I have to open my heart. I have to be willing to listen to His voice speaking in the silence of my heart. I have to be willing to be obedient to Him, Who is calling me to Himself. If I refuse to do those things, that is not His fault. He is there truly present whether I am willing to accept it or not. He is there in my heart when I receive Him in Holy Communion whether I am willing to unite myself to Him or not. He is calling me to deeper holiness whether I am willing to do it or not. There is nothing lacking on His part because absolutely everything is given, the fullness of His Person. What more could we ask?

Some twenty-five or twenty-seven hundred years ago now, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, and He said to Ahaz, who was a faithless and horrible king in Israel: Ask for a sign. Make it as high as the sky or as deep as the netherworld; ask anything that you want of God. If God came to us and said the same thing, which one of us would ever, ever say, I want You to humble Yourself so that I can receive You into my own self in the form of a piece of bread? It would be beyond our wildest imagination, and none of us would ever even dare to suggest that God should lower Himself and humble Himself to that extent. And because we would never even ask, God, Who is more generous than we could ever even ask Him to be, has done exactly that. He has given Himself to us in the form of a piece of bread. He Who is almighty is there in a passive form waiting now for us to accept the gift that He has given, the greatest gift that humanity could ever be given in this world because it is the gift of God Himself.

Rather than showing Himself through extraordinary signs and wonders, He is asking us for faith. He has put us into this desert of a world and He is afflicting our senses by asking us to go beyond what is external, beyond what is sensible, and asking for an act of faith. Only when that act of faith is given will the fullness of understanding follow. And when that act of faith is made, then the greatest Eucharistic miracle of all will happen: Our lives will be changed and we will become holy. That is what the Lord is looking for. He is there ready and willing to do all these things in us. Now all that He is asking of us is that we would do what is necessary. We have to be the ones who are active and make an act of faith.

Today Jesus looks at each one of us just as He looked at Thomas, His apostle, two thousand years ago. From the Blessed Sacrament right there in front of us and in the words that He will speak in our hearts in just a few minutes when we receive Him, as He spoke two thousand years ago, so He tells us the same today: Doubt no longer but believe.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

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